When life gets busy, how do you make sure you're not forgetting something important? Do you put a reminder on your phone, or do you write a to-do list? Add something to your calendar.
Sometimes in the busyness of life we lose focus of the chief reason for our existence. And today, Un Truth for Life, Alastair Begg reminds us of three essentials for every believer. I want to read just a few verses from Second Peter. And chapter one In the interest of time, I won't read from the first verse. You'll be familiar with the way in which Peter introduces this material.
To those who have received this wonderful faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He gives a word of exhortation that these Pilgrims may add to their faith. And in doing so, they make their calling and election sure and look forward to an abundant entry into the kingdom of heaven. And then he says in verse 12: So I will always remind you of these things. Even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you now have.
I think it's right. to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body, Because I know that I will soon put it aside, as our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me. And I will make every effort. to see that after my departure You will always be able to remember These things.
Now, you may ask the question: why it is that old men repeat themselves as much as they do? Frankly, you may feel that I can begin to answer that question for you this morning, given the distance that there is between yourselves and myself in terms of age. I'm sure there are many reasons why old men do this. Old women tend to do it as well. But we'll just think of men for the moment.
I think in part it has to do with the fact that there are moments and matters In the journey of their lives, That they want to ensure, at least for themselves, that they do not forget. I always want to remember this moment and I always want to make much of this matter.
So if you find yourself in the company of your grandfather this week and he's doing it again, just remember what I told you. A part of the challenge of being a student is that you have to remember, remember, remember everything. And I would be very Conceited to think that even 20 minutes after I conclude this talk to you, that you would even remember what I want to remind you of, but I'm going to try. I want to say a word to you about the privilege that you have today of studying in a place Where you have a view of the world that is biblical. And I want to say a word to you concerning the privilege that you enjoy.
of studying in a place where the Bible is absolutely central and affirmed. And then I want to say a word to you about the fact that God has chosen. To give you this privilege, yes, you as an individual known to God. to be alive today in this moment in history.
So the three reminders are essentially a reminder about the world. A reminder about the Bible. And a reminder about myself. First of all then Uh what about this world view?
Well, let me give to you The shorter Scottish Catechism, which I'm sure you all read this morning when you were having your rice krispies, as you asked yourself a question, having awakened to a new day: what is the chief end of man? And then you answered: the chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. I want to remind you of that this morning. When you awaken to a new day and you ask the fundamental questions of life, who am I? Why am I here?
And why do I exist? One of the distinctives of being a Christian is that as a result of having Jesus turn us the right way up in life, we understand our reason to be. We waken up to a new day, hoping that the clouds will part, trusting that the sun may shine. Bringing to this new day all of the events of our lives that have gone heretofore, the concerns of a new morning, the issues of our studies, the prospects of our future, the intricacies of our relationships, our concerns for our wider family members, and in the midst of all of that sea of experience, Remind yourself The reason that I exist today. It's not to get a degree.
is not to write a paper. is not a complete attest. But the reason I exist today is to glorify God. and to enjoy him Forever. I want to remind you of the immense privilege of being educated within the framework of such a worldview.
It stands in direct contrast to a secular and man-centered view of the world. One of my Christmas books has been the biography of Alastair Cook. In the course of the biography, I came across this quote. He was writing concerning the introduction of these letters from America at a time when the world was facing the prospect of further devastating war. And this is what he writes.
Even the prospect of annihilation. Should not keep us from making the best of our days on this unhappy planet. And it would be a crime against nature. For a generation to take the world crisis so solemnly that it put off enjoying those things for which we were presumably designed in the first place. and which the gravest statesman and the hoarsest politicians Hope to make available to all men in the end.
I mean. The opportunity to do good work. to fall in love to enjoy friends. to sit under trees To read To hit a ball and to bounce a baby. That's his worldview.
I hope he says that the impending crisis around us, even the prospect of annihilation, should not prevent us from enjoying that for which we have been created. But what's missing? It is not that the Christian worldview denigrates sitting under trees. God made the trees under which we sit. Every Christian ought to bounce a ball better than the non-Christian.
Everyone that hits a golf ball as a Christian ought to do it with a joyful passion that a pagan doesn't know. The bouncing of a baby on the knee is a wonderful thing because we're looking at it and we're saying, here is an immense and amazing creation of God. And this is another reminder to me today. Oh God, I want to glorify you today and I want to enjoy you forever. But you see, what is missing from Cook's life is the underpinning realization.
of the fact that he is not a product of time plus matter plus chance. But that he is a product of the intricate work of a creator God. Therefore, he's got nothing else to do except sit under trees and read books and bounce balls. It is a tragedy. The sixties.
produced more banal lyrics. under the disguise of intellectualism than any other decade in which I have lived. Perhaps the silliest lyric of all that I can remember from that year uh was uh done by Uh the son of Rex Harrison. of my fair lady's fame, etcetera. He had a son called Noel Harrison.
And he had his most famous contribution to the pop world at that time was a song called The Windmills of Your Mind. I don't expect you to remember it, but it goes when something like this run like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel, never ending or beginning on a never spinning reel, like a snowball down a mountain or a carnival balloon. And it just went on like that ad nauseum. I can see you're already bored with it. It had lines like: keys that jingle in your pocket, words that jangle in your head.
Why did summer go so quickly? Was it something that we said? And lovers walk along the shore and they leave their footprints in the sand. Is the sound of distant drumming just the fingers of my hand? When I knew that it was over, I was suddenly aware.
That the autumn leaves were turning to the color of her hair, run like a circle. What the dickens does that mean? What does that mean?
Well, it was essentially a Greek view of the universe. That it is not linear, but it is cyclical. We're simply going round and round and round. And the Christian young person stands up and says, No, we're not. In a moment in time, God breaks out of eternity and creates, and history moves to a point when the Son of God will rise with healing in his wings and usher in the conclusion.
So I've taken too long on this. Be careful of setting enjoyment of God and obedience to God as protagonists. Should I enjoy God or should I obey God? That's like asking. Should I choose fruit or should I choose apples?
Obedience is doing what we're told. And we're told to delight ourselves in the Lord. And therefore, pursuing joy in God. is obedience. Just a simple reminder to you of the Answer to the shorter Scottish Catechism question one.
The reason you exist is this. There's no ideal place to serve God except the place He sits you down. Don't get up in the morning and look over your shoulder and say, You know, if I were her, it would be fine. If I was him, it would be fine. If I was there, it would be fine.
If I got through this, it will be fine. Listen, it will never be fine. Reminder number one. Your worldview reminder number two. The place of the Bible.
in your studies and in your life. 2 Timothy 3, Paul writes, to Timothy as a young man. And he says to him, Timothy, as for you, verse 14 of 2 Timothy 3, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. Can I say a word to those of you this morning who've begun to grow flippant with your Bibles? You're so readily here.
You're just a first-year student. But you've started to get a little clever. Repent of it immediately. and go walk out for a long time. And ask God to burn into your heart the absolute privilege and immensity.
of having been reared in the scriptures. Do not allow your familiarity with the text of the Bible, the fact that you carry it along with other books in your bag, the fact that you are introduced to it here in a routine fashion, to do anything other than to inculcate within you a genuine and increased longing to be a young man or a young woman of the Bible. Thomas Akempus on one occasion said, I have no greater joy than to be in a nook with the book, and the book to which he referred was none other than the Bible itself. And the Bible has been given to us in order that we might hear it. In order that we might believe it.
and in order that we might tell others about it. I was helped as a youngster to think of the Bible in a number of ways.
Sometimes, when I found it hard reading in the Old Testament, somebody would tell me that the Bible was a book that had the answers in the back, that the further you went, the clearer it became. There's truth in that.
Someone said reading a Bible is a bit like reading a detective novel. There are all these different threads going all over the place, and you wonder where this one is going and that one is going. And then finally, as in a novel, there is a great denouement towards the end, and it all comes together. I found that helpful.
Somebody told me that it was like a two-act drama. If you go to a two-act play and you come Only for the second half, you haven't got a clue what was going on, so you annoy your wife saying, Who's he, who's she, why is she saying that? Twitch your wife says show up on time don't annoy me I speak from experience. If you simply attend If you simply tend The first half and leave, then of course, you've got no way of knowing how the thing comes out. For those of you who only read the New Testament, For whatever strange reason You don't know what the foundations are upon which you're building and reading.
For any of you who tend just to read the Old Testament and don't read through and across the intertestamental divide, if you like. And you don't understand. I want to remind you. That whether you're an engineer A biologist, a nurse. a computer major, whatever else it is.
One The reason you exist is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. And two, the most important book in your library is your Bible. Is your Bible? Do you read your Bible? Towards the end of Francis Schaefer's life, As people were coming in and out of his room, looking to him as he was approaching the gates of death, he said to one of the visitors at one point, and he had his Bible beside him on the chair, his powers were diminishing dramatically.
And he said, You know, some days all that I can do is pick up my Bible and hold it in my hands. and tap it. It's a quite graphic picture, isn't it? Of course, some of us, that's all we do with our Bibles. You think you've done your job if you hold it up and tap it.
You're allowed to say that when you're facing the death's door after you've read the Bible through a hundred times. You're not allowed to say it when you're a second-year student at Cedarville, having hardly read the Bible in the 20-odd days of January so far. In the Old Testament, Jesus is predicted. In the Gospels, Jesus is revealed. In the Acts Jesus is preached.
In the epistles, Jesus is explained. And in the book of Revelation, Jesus is expected. And what is the purpose of the Bible? It is to make us wise unto salvation. Where is the wise man?
says Paul in First Corinthians. Where is the wise man? And where is the scoffer of the age? Let them step forward. Where is the scholar?
Where is the philosopher? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. In other words, there is within the world and always a tremendous amount of educated foolishness. And when we come to our Bibles, the Bible it is, the Bible doesn't save us, but the Bible makes us wise unto salvation.
The Bible points out that we're living our lives upside down in rebellion against God, and that the ministry of Christ is to come and to turn us the right way up. And when Christ turns us the right way up, then we're at odds with everyone who is still upside down. Why? Because it is the Bible that makes a man wise unto salvation. It is the Bible.
This is the work of the Bible that does this. It has been God-breathed. And it is profitable. For correction and for rebuke and for training and righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
So, some of you are going to go out into youth ministry. And you have a guitar and you can play it, congratulations. And you have a basketball and you can bounce it. I'm thrilled. And you have a strategy and you're about to implement it.
I couldn't be happier for you, but let me tell you: if you don't teach your young people the Bible and make them wise unto salvation, you may produce a bunch of guitar-playing, basketball-bouncing, strategy-filled nincomp poops that will amount to nothing for the kingdom of God. Nothing. Because it is only the Bible that makes wise to salvation. That is the distinction you see. I want to remind you.
Do you feel like you're being reminded? Because you're not sure. Yes, you say, give us the last reminder. We would like you out of here. Fine.
Let me say a word about worldview, a world about the Bible and its clarity and vitality, and a world about myself. Isaiah sixty-six, two. This is the man to whom I will look, says the Lord, he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and who trembles at my word. The challenge to Timothy again in 2 Timothy 3 is that he's going to exercise this ministry of the Bible in an environment when men will be philautos, they will be lovers of themselves rather than lovers of God. Surely a society is in real difficulty.
When what is described in the Bible as a disease is offered in the culture As a medicine. From pillar to post, you're constantly told: you know, what you need to do is have a view of yourself, you need to love yourself. Paul says you've got a problem, Timothy, because you're going to teach the Bible in a context and people love themselves.
Now, the answer to self-love is not self-hate, the answer to self-love is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. Then we have a due understanding of where we are. What's taking place now at the beginning of the 21st century, the end of the 20th, is nothing short of shameful. Everybody's driving around, as I've told you before, I'm sure I have because I say this everywhere I go, I'm so fixated with it. But everybody's driving around with signs on the back of their minivans about how brilliant their children are.
Everywhere you go, my child did this, my child did that, my child jumped off a building, my child did this. In an earlier generation, there was nothing other than arrogance and pride. You don't walk around and talk about what your children did or who your children were or where they went. You may be quietly happy and proud and encouraged. You don't drive up and down the high street announcing it, do you?
It's the same in the church. But it's not the same in the Bible. Moses, I have a job for you. Moses says, Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh? And part of her comes To Joseph and he says, I hear that uh you are able to uh interpret dreams.
And Joseph says, I can't. But God will. And they came to John the Baptist and they said to him, John, tell us something about yourself. Who are you? Are you one of the prophets?
No. Are you this person? No. Well, who are you?
Well, I'm a voice, I cry out in the wilderness. I'm a light shining for a little while. I'm a finger pointing in the darkness. Do you think if you had been given the privilege of bearing The incarnate God. You ever had a website?
Hey, my name is Mary. Check in with me. I'm great. Or do you think you would have sung the song with Mary? Who am I?
that you would regard the lowly estate of your handmaiden. G. K. Chesterton. A funny man and A great writer, I think.
In nineteen thirty seven It's staggering this. 1937. He writes this, Modesty has moved. From the organ of ambition to the organ of conviction. where it was never meant to be.
A man was meant to be doubtful about himself. But undoubting about the truth. This has been exactly Reversed. Isn't that right? We're supposed to be doubtful about ourselves and undoubtful about the truth.
Now it is perfectly okay to say, I don't know anything about truth. But I know a lot about myself. Says Chesterton. We are on the road, 1937. to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe.
in the multiplication table. Do you not know where the hardest thing for me is in my Christian life? Thinking of myself more highly than I ought? Pride. When a man is proud, he doesn't pray.
He doesn't feel he needs to. When a girl is proud and self-assured, she will not depend upon God. She believes she can depend upon herself. I carry this in my Bible. It's easy to carry it in your Bible, it's hard to put it into practice.
I have it in the front all the time. My secretary laminated it for me a few years ago. It says, This, Lord, I renounce my desire for human praise. for the approval of my peers, the need for public recognition. I deliberately put these aside today.
Content to hear you whisper, well done, good. and faithful servant. I tell you, young person, if you're prepared to take that. And make that your credo. Then what an impact for God you will make.
On the journey of your days. Thank you for listening so carefully. to these Three charter day reminders. You're listening to Truth for Life with Alice Durbeg. If you're a long-time Truth for Life listener, you may know that Truth for Life is entirely listener funded.
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Thanks for joining us this week. Hope you have a great weekend and are able to join us on Monday when we'll learn how our inadequacies can actually make us useful. The Bible teaching of Alastair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life. Where the Learning is for Living.
